Website Challenges You To 'Do Nothing For 2 Minutes'

Most websites want to get you to take an action: click, watch, share, tweet, check in, they implore.

Alex Tew, CEO of Popjam, has created a site, Do Nothing For 2 Minutes, that challenges you to do absolutely nothing, for two whole minutes.

The new site shows a photograph of the ocean at sunset and plays the sound of waves crashing on a beach. "Just relax and listen to the waves," it instructs. "Don't touch your mouse or keyboard." If you don't follow the instructions and begin to fidget, type, scroll, or move your mouse, the two-minute timer resets itself and a red "FAIL" appears on the screen.

Tew told TechCrunch,

I had been thinking how we spend every waking minute of the day with access to an unlimited supply of information, to the point of information overload. i also read somewhere that there is evidence that our brains are being re-wired by the internet, because we get a little dopamine kick every time we check our e-mail or Twitter or Facebook and there's a new update. So we're all developing a bit of ADD. which is probably not great in terms of being productive.

Over 60,000 people have shared the site on Facebook. Check out the website, then take our poll!

Quick Poll

Were you able to "do nothing for 2 minutes"?

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Comments

[SusanneLuxury]

12:13 PM on 01/30/2011

www.donothingfor1minutes.com is much better ;)

[syturvy]

01:54 PM on 02/18/2011

Even that is too long... You should try www.squobble.com/2seconds

[Deanne609]

09:26 PM on 01/26/2011

If this is an Art form...Call me Michelangelo! I can do nothing well. : )

[eri 68]

01:19 PM on 01/26/2011

That was harder than I thought. I'm constantly in motion, (and I don't mean breathing, blinking, or as we refer to it, existing) but actually doing something almost every moment, it seems. Sitting back and doing nothing was a real challenge and, I humbly confess, I failed. Though it just said "Just relax and listen to the waves. Don't touch your mouse or keyboard" I touched my speakers but only because I couldn't hear the waves! lol

[StephenJK]

02:47 AM on 01/26/2011

This is impossible. Simply by existing, you are doing something. What a sham.

[KC45]

05:08 PM on 01/25/2011

I could do this all day!

[TheSojourner]

05:01 AM on 01/25/2011

I did nothing for at least 4 minutes because it kept going to "FAIL" even when I didn't do anything.
What's with that?

[french queen13]

08:23 PM on 01/24/2011

I do nothing for at least an hour every day ... longer, if the railways are stuffing around again.

[Kupo]

04:41 PM on 01/24/2011

Easiest way to see the end without having to 'do nothing':
- click on the address bar
- type 'donothingfor2minutes.com' and press Enter
- open/click on a different tab with the mouse
- go about your browsing as normal for 2+ minutes

[SShaw490]

04:19 PM on 01/25/2011

I think your post wins the "Irony Post Of The Month" prize. LOL!

"I'll find a way around this relaxation baloney..."

[eri 68]

01:21 PM on 01/26/2011

LOL I confess while I had this site up on my desktop and was trying really hard to do nothing (though I touched my speakers thereby failing), my eyes kept wandering to my laptop while my brain ran through the list of things I could be doing on it.

[PenguinLinux]

10:08 AM on 01/24/2011

Better challenge......... hold no thought for 2 minutes.

[StephenJK]

02:46 AM on 01/26/2011

HA! Maharishi, is that you?

[Billy Jack]

09:45 AM on 01/24/2011

I felt so tired I just had to have me a sit down, I've been here for seven hours

[Billy Jack]

09:44 AM on 01/24/2011

I know some people who do nothing all day

[4dogs]

09:00 AM on 01/24/2011

I'm clicking on it and nothing is happening. It won't even let me do nothing. Waaah! I wanna do nothing!!!!!!!!!!!

[ModestMouse99]

08:24 AM on 01/24/2011

I do nothing a lot more than 2 minutes everyday.... so how would I know if I did nothing the right way?

[KsWrangler]

08:22 AM on 01/24/2011

I was going to do nothing for 2 minutes but I dosed off for half an hour and ran out of time.

[Patria227]

08:15 AM on 01/24/2011

I don't need any encouragement to do nothing for 2 minutes.... easy enough.